Fly, Broken Bird
by Eagleflame
Summary: Five years after the defeat of the Fell Dragon, Robin's first day back in the Shepherds only seems to drudge up bad memories. She thought that that desperation to find her meant something more. But as Robin settles back into life as she once knew it, Sumia's life seems to have flipped upside down as bad memories of her own begin to resurface.
1. Chapter 1

**This takes place post-game, so beware of spoilers.**

Alone.

Chrom's tactician watches behind a castle wall. Its stone, cooled with the outside air of a chilled spring day, brushes by her cheek, leaving a residue of mildew in its crude kiss. Her hazel eyes close, then open again. The sight before her remains the same: Chrom and his wife. She clutches a child's hand. As Chrom bends down to say something, to stroke the child's wild blue hair, she giggles as her mouth parts in a wide grin. Little Lucina.

It's been a while, hasn't it?

She almost can't believe the time that has passed. Five years since that day when she felt that she may never see Lucina grow up—which was funny to even think, really. After all, she had seen her grown up, and wasn't she a sight? It's almost hard to believe that the five-year-old before her will grow up to be such a strong woman.

Five years.

Her arms tighten further around her tome. The worn covers feel soft, like velvet. She almost lost it, her trusty tome. That's a worry—she almost never loses it. But she supposes that maybe she could forgive herself this time. When you're collapsing, your first thought isn't exactly, "Save my tome!" as it tumbles from your hands and to the wild expanse of clouds beneath. She knows that outright.

Chrom grabbed her hand, she remembers that. But then it slipped, he faded away. His stare never left her face as everything disintegrated away. She dimly recalls hearing his voice—but it wasn't anything she wanted to hear.

 _"Why did you have to do that—?!"_

Yes. That's what it was, it's really coming back now. A part of her longed for something else to slip from his lips. Something kindly. If she were to be selfish, maybe even a "thank you."

If she were to be naïve, maybe an "I love you."

Bitter bile rises in her throat. She swallows it away. That's right, isn't it? A final confession—how silly of her to even wish for one when he was already fully committed to someone else. He's been long committed to someone else.

Her eyes avert to the ground. A lone bug scuttles by her boot, and she steps aside to allow it to pass into the throne room. Little Lucina cries out, screams a laugh as footsteps patter on the stone. Her shadow looms by the corner the tactician hides behind.

"Look, it's a little buggy!"

"Yes, it is, isn't it?" Chrom says in reply. She can just _feel_ his smile. Humored, gentle, soft. Age has yet to dull his kind eyes as they probably look his daughter's way.

"It's cute!"

His wife keeps back a laugh, but she can't stifle it.

"Can we keep him?"

She doesn't hear the rest of it. She doesn't want to hear the rest of it.

The silver sword brushes against her hip as she slips back further, and she touches a hand to it, feels its warmth radiating into her fingertips, her palm. She was never all that comfortable with a sword. It always seemed to terrify her for some reason. She doesn't really understand why.

But she remembers the few times she did use it. Their first fight together, a shriek as a bandit staggers back from its point. Back-to-back against Chrom, with Risen on every side. A peaceful feeling as she cleans the blade, a wet feeling when it accidentally cuts her when her hand slips, Chrom laughing at her surprise in the barracks. Lucina admiring it in the sunlight as it starts to slip beyond the horizon. She always thought of that glow in the woman's eyes as silly—after all, her father's sword was beyond compare, yet she never uttered a word against the tactician's own weapon.

 _"You were always there by Father's side. You never ceased cleaning it, I remember when you let me wield it once. The grip was perfect. The weight was balanced," Lucina said, closing her blue gaze, "and it always reflected that smile you wore."_

If not for Lucina, the tactician probably would have slunk away at the mere sight of Chrom's wife again. She had forgotten about her. She regrets forgetting about her. Her cock-eyed, wistful grin, her tall boots never blemished by the mud of the battlefield. The brightness of her eyes as she stroked a tamed creature.

Compared to her ragged cloak, Sumia must be a wonderful sight to the man.

Lucina darts around the corner. She lets go of a screaming caterwaul of joy. "I found her, I found her!"

The tactician jumps at the girl's words and parts her mouth in shock. As little Lucina tugs on the stained robe, the shredded black and violet of its pattern creases in her hands.

"Found who, Lucina?" She cringes as Chrom heads over to the pair. Then she musters the most pathetic smile she could at the man when his face peers behind the wall, and he steps out to face the two girls. That look, that kindly, humored upturn of the lips at her. "There you are, Robin," his pleasant voice rings out.

"Oh?" Sumia pops out of the corner, her hazelnut-grey hair bobbing at her back. The tactician presses her lips together, glances away. She tightens her arms further around her trusty tome. "You could have worn some of my clothes, Robin."

"It's fine. I'm just glad Chrom didn't walk in on my showering again," she jokes. But it's hollow. "I'll find a way to fix my clothes later."

"N-no, you don't deserve to wear those, they're soiled!" she replies. "There's no fixing those!"

Robin shrugs. Her fingers knit into her pile of navy hair, damp with a hot shower. She can still feel some dirt in it that she missed the third time around. It doesn't feel right living in the castle again—she supposes that she got too used to living in the grime of a muddy cave, waiting patiently for someone to find her again. Watching the sunsets get too numerous to count, tasting the bear meat improve every night. Fighting against the bandits and gangs with only a sharp stick and her wits to her advantage. A part of her still felt guilt for what she had almost done; well, more like what her future self _had_ done. For letting that monster take control of her fell blood. For even meeting the Shepherds, for ignoring Frederick's warnings, for joining in on that very first battle against them, for pressing herself against Chrom's side as they defended that town against attacking bandits thirsting for screams.

She never wanted Chrom to die.

It was a sheer miracle they even ran into the red-headed merchant the tactician had encountered before—and was sorely told to get some gold or get lost. That she even told them of the weary, worn-down traveler scouting her wares like someone eagerly seeking the perfect tool, the ideal weapon, that object that would make or break a war. The remembrance the girl had at the traveler's hazel eye scouring the objects, that fierceness—that was what she relayed to Chrom and Lissa upon their questioning.

Sumia wasn't accompanying them. Neither was Frederick, the loyal knight, or Lon'qu, the silent swordsman. Just Chrom and Lissa. He had insisted it be that way. He was fighting a losing battle to find the heart tied to so many, yet he didn't care, didn't listen to the naysayers in the Shepherds who insisted that she was gone. They were only trying to break it to him kindly.

Five years of waiting, of searching, all culminating to this point.

"How can you keep those clothes, anyway? Don't they just remind you of Validar?" Sumia continues.

Ah yes. The warlock. Her dear, sweet father.

"I suppose," is all she can get out. She wonders if perhaps he gave them to her, maybe as a child. Maybe as a bright young woman. Maybe he cared when he did that; maybe he didn't. Either way, everything's over—that's what Chrom told her.

"Whether she's wearing clothes or no clothes—" She feels her face get hot. "—she's more than welcome here," Chrom says. "We can get you something new in the marketplace later."

"That's okay," she replies, "I'm fine with just a seamstress."

"What a coincidence, Sumia's been practicing," he says, surprise lining his tone. His wife breaks out in a wide grin.

The tactician squeezes her eyes shut.

"Um, sorry, I have a headache. Maybe we can work on it later?"

Chrom blinks, then nods tersely. "So you're not well enough for a banquet dinner I cooked up for you?"

Icy blood floods through her veins. Then she calms, rubs her arms together to try to thaw her vessels out. " _You_ cooked it up?" Chrom nods. _He can cook?!_ the tactician thinks. "That sounds lovely," she says. If Sumia wasn't there, she would be thrilled. However, be as it may, she has Chrom there to support her.

"Unfortunately, I have some business to attend to at Ferox, so I won't be able to stay."

And whatever efforts she expelled to warm her blood up went to naught.


	2. Chapter 2

Sumia has never hated Robin, per se. She hasn't exactly liked her, either. Since first laying eyes on her in the barracks that day, everything about the young woman just screamed _ruddy_.

Her clothes were an absolute mess: an ugly black robe with eye patterns on the sleeves, which were so oversized that they couldn't at all be practical in the heat of battle; a shirt that looked as if it was stained a color that represented a disgusting affinity for waste and mucus; and her baggy pants, grass-stained at the backs of her thighs and muddy at the knees, flared out in a way that just made the girl wonder _what in Ylisse Chrom was thinking_!

But it's never the outfit that catches the eye—well, for Sumia, it is, but that's really not the point. As the woman looked into the stranger's eyes, it were as if something slimy crawled along her spine and licked the base of her backside. One fierce chocolate iris framed within a pale red cornea. A black-as-Plegia eyepatch covered a presumably offending eye, and, well, in her case, it was probably just as well.

Yet what really, really frustrated her?

She was pretty.

A gentle, natural blush across a soft face. A single eye that seemed to sparkle, as if Chrom was a light source reflecting a spray of tiny, luminous orbs into her pupil. A smile that, when turned upward, was as kindly and wise as a majestic pegasus, or, if she really wants to go there, Sumia's mother. Her hair, navy as it were, shined a pretty pale blue in the sunlight. While it was messy, it was also styled in a way that was carefully complementary with the woman's calculating, complicated personality.

It really made Sumia mad.

Every morning at precisely five o'clock, Sumia rises out of bed to brush her hair, brush her teeth, check for plaque, brush again, and throw on some powdered rose petals from her garden for an extra touch to her slender cheeks. She made sure to part her hair just right—it was neither left nor right, but the middle, the middle every time, every day. It couldn't have a single flaw. It had to twist just right in the wind, that's what her mother said.

And yet Robin here made it look easy! She just _gets on out of bed_ in the morning at precisely _midnight_ and barely even runs her fingers through that hair of hers before getting on with her day! She doesn't have to worry about crushing rose petals or bringing out the hazel in her eye. It's just there, it just happens!

When Sumia ponders in her closet to find the perfect outfit for the day that'll be complementary with the perfect armor choice—you must be prepared for the battle ahead—Robin just throws on anything and _wow_! is she pretty as Naga. She doesn't bare her legs, yet they don't say anything as to how that's so strange, or how that's super weird or something for a girl. She hides her entire body, yet not one person made comment! Not one! When Sumia joined the Shepherds, _ooh_! they were after her like locusts on a carcass.

Yet, she supposes, she feels bad for her. Like when they found out that Validar was her _father_ , of all people! Or that she had to die for Grima to die, she resolved to die for them, her friends, the hearts hers was tied to, set upon, deeply interwoven in. She missed five years of her life rotting away in some dark cave by herself. She barely even recognized Chrom and Lissa after they found her asleep; she attacked them with a stick and nearly took Sumia's husband's eye out (granted, that may have been purposeful the way her eye is probably all mangled beneath that patch—if she wanted someone to get it, they would certainly get it then) once awake enough to go into defense mode.

But what really makes Sumia guilty for just _thinking_ all those things about Robin? Nothing for her ever lasted. Her attempted relationship with Chrom never happened after Chrom turned her proposal down. Her sanity practically came apart like her robe after being told about her past, what she was, what she is, what she will always be. Her trust in Lucina, her close friend, the respective daughter of Chrom who always admired his tactician, turned cold with her attempted homicide of the woman. Her beauty tarnished into a trembling, tiny mess, nothing more but skin and bones, that pretty chocolate eye now sunken and dull. Her hair ceased looking well put-together and instead just looked sloppy, even torn-up in spots.

In short?

Sumia pities the poor soul.

A part of her even wonders why she hated her so much.

And then she remembers:

 _It was because she still had feelings for her husband._

It was hard to watch Robin stare almost hungrily with that broken gaze upon his helping her from his horse. Her thin hands not releasing his wrists. In fact, Sumia watched from her bedroom's window as they only clenched around him tighter. It was as if she didn't even hear him when he told her to take a nice, long shower and forget about what happened. Her lips only shuddered as she whispered a pale acknowledgement. She nodded, but it was hollow and empty. A limp marionette.

Sumia remembers that day, the day when she was in the kahn's home, about to read her flower petals and see where the delicate life will take her on such a shaky day, the day they were about to do battle in Ferox—when she heard a voice.

In the corridor outside her room, she remembers hearing Robin and Chrom. And something Robin said drove a stake to her heart that was worse than the heartburn Vaike's cooking would give her: _"Chrom, I…I like you. I like you a lot, in fact."_ Sumia can imagine the expression on the girls's face: embarrassment, an attempted aloofness that can't quite come through. _"When we first met, I didn't really think I belonged in the Shepherds. But when we fought together… I couldn't imagine anything I would do in place of it. Everything seemed to change, you were there, you stood by my side even when no one else seemed to care. I want to be by your side in return."_

For a long moment, Sumia recalls not being able to move, not even a twitch. She had to force an inhale, then an exhale. Her hands clenched around a carnation bouquet.

Then it passes at Chrom's reply, pained and apologetic—just what she would expect from her leader. _"Robin, I'm sorry. I can't go into a negotiation when I can't commit to the pact. My heart has already found its truth."_ Those last seven words. That final dagger he thrust through her chest. _My heart has already found its truth._

And then he made it worse, he made it horribly wrong, all of it. _"But I would love it if you stayed. You're a valuable asset to the Shepherds, we'd have long lost this war if you never decided to choose to stick with us."_

You _never_ tell a girl that. That's as if Chrom told Sumia that she was great for the team—her flower readings really gave them some fantastic morale!—but not for anything else.

Sumia doesn't even think Robin heard him.

That night, after the decisive battle, after Lon'qu was pressured to join the Shepherds and the group all sat down to a feast—Robin was absent. Sumia knew why, she knew that, if the woman was anything like herself, she'd be crying in her quarters or taking a shower with enough steam to cover up even the thickest of tears. But the gentle animal-loving girl never excused herself, never got up to talk to Robin about it. She doesn't even think Robin knows that she heard the proposal.

And then Chrom proposed to Sumia, right before the final battle against the mad king, that dark moment when no one was quite sure they'd make it out alright— _right in front of everyone_.

Robin was strong, stronger than she'd ever even admit. But she can be more than a little stubborn, too. Sumia wishes she just gave up, but every time she thinks that, she can just imagine it—the grit determination as the tactician lived through another day, tackled down another bear, choked down its meat, and looked up to the sunset as she mused, "I'll meet up with you again, Chrom. I promise."

Did that actually happen?

The girl has no idea.

And yet here she stands in front of her, her clothing ragged, her frame haggard, expectantly staring up at Chrom as he utters those dangerous words, "Unfortunately, I have some business to attend to at Ferox, so I won't be able to stay." Sumia cringes as she sees the shattering hopes in her hazelnut eye. "But I'm sure that you and the rest of the Shepherds will have a lot of catching up to do, so I won't want to get in your way."

"Oh. That's okay, don't worry about it," Robin replies. She takes in a breath, glances a pursed expression Sumia's way, and straightens her collar—now too big on her—out. "I should find something better to wear, shouldn't I?"

"You look fine as you are," he reassures. Sumia fights back the urge to snark a retraction, and she bites her lip hard. Robin's return to the Shepherds is more than a little awkward.

* * *

Sumia pauses at the castle doors to see her husband off, little Lucina tightly clutching her hand. Robin, of course, made sure she was present as well to cast him one last pathetic look—and probably to watch Sumia, too. Robin always was the snoop, though, the girl supposes, her role in the Shepherds dictates it. Right? But wasn't a tactician supposed to be trusting of her own group to make the plans she draws up a success?

She's never understood that about the woman, not even after finding out the whole truth about her past. After all, she was supposed to be amnesiac when they stumbled across her all those years ago, and her actions certainly screamed that.

Doubtful, awkward, nervous. All those things Sumia's mother forbid her daughter to never let slip from her façade.

The queen jolts from her thoughts to give Chrom an enthusiastic wave.

"Bye, Daddy!" Lucina croons happily.

As Robin lowers her hand from her own wave, static and unflinching, she itches at her head and exhales. Checks under her fingertips. Itches at it again. It was as if she hid her discomfort from Chrom up until the last second.

Her shoulders stiffen, and the tactician stretches. "I should freshen up," she finally says, turning to leave.

Sumia doesn't do or say anything at first. Then, with Lucina still cheering for Daddy, she rushes to follow the woman whose pace has suddenly quickened tenfold.

"Hey, Robin—" The tactician pauses mid-stride down the corridor. "In the baths, behind a loose stone, there's a hairbrush I put there so Tharja didn't use mine again. You can use it, if you want, for getting out the…dirt…" Sumia gestures vaguely to her own head of ashen-grey locks.

Robin smiles over her shoulder. It's taut and a little strained, but it's a smile nonetheless. "Thanks. Why wasn't I aware of your secret hairbrush?" She cocks an eyebrow up, the smile turning up a little further in the way of genuineness.

Sumia knits her fingers behind her back and tips herself up on her heels. "A good Shepard needs her secret stash, and a great Shepard keeps it even from the most—" The queen catches herself before almost saying, "snoopy." "—perceptive of tacticians."

The tactician smirks a bit and turns around fully now. She puts a hand to her hair, ratted and thinned out. "You sure I won't wreck it?"

"Positive," Sumia affirms.

Chuckling, Robin continues toward the baths. "No wonder you'd have dust all over your clothes," she murmurs to no one in particular.


End file.
